Picture This: The Other Side of The Wall

She stood staring in the mirror. How did she get here? What was that sound coming from inside the wall? And why were the paper towels under the paper towels?

She moved the paper towels. She turned off the faucet. No make-up to fix and her hair was fine pulled up in a pony tale. Now, about that noise.

Ever try to hear what noise is coming from the wall when someone in the room keeps flushing the toilet? She'd need to leave the room. She'd need to be on the other side of that wall. She left the room.

The sound of her footsteps clicks down the hall. The toilet flushes again.

From the other side of the wall she can hear a very tiny voice whisper, "The paper towels were not yours to move..."

She does not hear the disturbing sound from inside the wall. She does hear the toilet flush. Again.

"Enough of this," she sighs. "Time to get to work."

-- doug smith

Picture This:

1. Find a random image (truly random, do not select the picture.)
2. Write for 5 minutes with that picture as your inspiration. Stop.

Five Minutes: There Is No Monologue

She got up to the front of the stage, ready to start her monologue. The lights were brighter than usual with a random slide show slightly illuminating the audience. It was a small crowd, probably no more than fifteen people. They seemed attentive and not yet drunk enough to get loud. Maybe she could pull this off.

What's up with the slides, though? She did not expect this. Maybe she should extemporaneously comment about the slides. What were they about. But no, it was time to start her monologue.

She faced the audience, at least half of which was more focused on other things. She'd better take focus NOW.

I will need two random words from the audience to begin.

"Random words"
"Dinosaur"
"Elevator"
"Global warming"
"Picture window"
"Dinosaur"
"Sex"
"Relationships"
"Shopping"
"Zero"

She boldly selected: "Dinosaur Sex" she said. That will be the topic of my monologue.

"Sounds like a winner," said an audience member, a man about 25 who was just getting his buzz on.

"So ends the audience participation portion of this monologue," she said, not at all nervous but not at all focused. What were the two words?

"There is no monologue," said the buzzing guy's date. She seemed more buzzed than him. "And you forgot your two words, didn't you?"

How could she admit it?  She did.

-- doug smith

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FIVE MINUTES
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1. Write for exactly five minutes, then stop.
2. Find a random image to add

Five Minutes: Her Plan

That wasn't what she said. He thought it was, but it was trickier than that. It was something so subtle she couldn't even tell that her plan to outsmart him was working.

It was so easy.

He was never smart when it came to her.

Birds flew in his brain erratically ringing bells and rattling shutters as if a hurricane was headed his way. It was. Her hurricane. Her plan of raging menacing love, focused on getting everything in place.

Honestly, he saw her as the most honest person he knew.

Honestly, she mean to be completely honest. At all times. Even (especially) with him. But she lied.

She lied about eternity. She lied about love. And she lied about the body buried in the basement.

Who was that? How did he get there? What did she have to do with it?

He'll never know. He had nothing to do with her for ten years or more and now, back in her life, he has nothing to say about what she did during that time. No reason to get upset about any of it. It was (as Adele sang in the background), water under the bridge.

He preferred Patty Griffin. The bare, essential, raw Patty Griffin that she played the first time they slept together (again). It felt oddly unrelated and yet completely related. What did Moses have to do with this? Who was Lorraine?

It didn't end the way he'd planned. Was it nerves? Was it trouble? Was it all in her plan?

No, nothing was in her plan. She'd planned it that way.



-- Doug Smith

Five Minutes: Writing improvisationally without filters for five minutes and then stopping. Then, perhaps, finding a random image to go with it.